The Discovery Tour
by TheWeepingTurtle
Summary: The night Billie Lurk severed the cord between him and the Void was the night that The Outsider was set free. Freedom comes at a cost, of course, and the Void isn't yet ready to be forgotten. Post-DOTO & Human!Outsider
1. Chapter 1

**Part I: A New Breath of Life**

 **Chapter I**

* * *

"I see… t-that there are no choices left…"

The Outsider had seen all possibilities, and each led to his demise, like this one. For this, he was secretly grateful. The pain and suffering over thousands of years had numbed him, and yet he still longed for a release from the Void which had taken him hostage, bending him to its will, to be its caretaker, its hand, its meddler, its mischievous god.

And yet Billie Lurk had chosen a rare possibility: one where The Outsider tasted life again, like sweet candy on his tongue, melting at a leisurely pace and leaving a strange stickiness at the back of his throat. It amused him beyond all end, he'd like to think, that a human would choose to free a god. Slowly, agonizingly slow, she caressed his face, each finger carving out its own path down the granite, gently, his terrified eyes locked on some unseen terror in the distance.

"After everything I've done, everything it's taken me to get my ass to the Void… And you're not even some horror that I have to face. You're at my mercy… but you've always been at the mercy of bad people, haven't you?"

Billie's words stung in The Outsider's ears, watching from a distance and yet never able to step a foot closer. Something about her actions, whichever path she chose to take, took his breath away, leaving curious, painted eyes to watch from afar. This was The Outsider's last interest, his last game, his last piece to play. Now, Billie Lurk was playing hers. Well, Billie? What are you going to choose?

With a step back, the woman clutched her prosthetic, Void-gifted arm over her new eye, trying to _feel_ what she could not. Instead, only the reverberations of stone against stone, metal against metal resounded in her ears. Billie's dark eyes scanned over the imprisoned Sacrifice, holding her breath as she calculated what she would do next. In an instance of weakness, she decided.

"I've seen what you've wanted me to see, you black-eyed bastard, but…" Billie glanced away, letting her flesh hand drop from his face. Still, he screamed silently as he had been for all of his eternity, awaiting her answer. "You don't deserve this-No one deserves this." She looked away and towards Daud. His ghostly form flickered at her gaze, almost in shame, almost in embarrassment, tendrils of the Void licking up his sides and caressing him.

Turning away from the Sacrifice, Billie approached Daud, her worn and tired boots clopping on voidstone, each step reverberating on the still air around her. Was it even air? Was this even real? Everything here was so foreign to her, so ghostly, so _cold._ It was almost like a dream-a dream she wasn't ready to wake up from. She had a duty to carry out-Daud's last dying wish-and she was going to finish what she'd started whether she liked it or not. "Daud."

His eyes never lifted from his hands. They sat folded on his thighs, flickering like a broken projection. "Billie." Daud was no longer Daud. He was broken; He was lost.

But Billie sensed that Daud was more than that: The way his yellowed teeth ground, his pale lips quivered, and his dead eyes flicked along the age-old lines running over his ghostly flesh. Daud wanted revenge, and he wanted Billie to take it for him.

"What are you doing here, old man?" To Billie, it was a simple question, but to Daud it was more than that-it was rhetorical. It hit him like a punch in the gut.

"I accepted The Outsider's Mark like a greedy rat child," his rugged voice croaked, self-hatred flickering in his eyes. "I ran the rivers red with guilty and innocent blood alike. I did it for _coin_ , Billie, with _his_ Mark. I _murdered_ an Empress for my old selfish desires, beginning a tale as dark as time itself. I _killed_ Dunwall, Billie, with his help."

Billie understood where he was coming from. She had been full of her own hatred for the same reasons, for the same selfishness. "You did it to survive, Daud. The Whalers needed your guidance."

"The Whalers were blinded by _me_! _You_ were blinded by me! It's all-! It's all _his_ fault." Slowly, his flickering eyes slithered over to rest on the rigid form of the Sacrifice. "It's your final assignment from me, Billie Lurk. Kill The Outsider. _Make sure he feels it._ "

"I won't."

Daud glanced up with malice, an electrical shiver rushing down Billie's spine. Their eyes were interlocked, and she found that she was unable to pry away. "And why not, _Lurk_?"

There was only one other time that he'd looked at her similarly, his eyes carmine with contempt and _hurt._ She'd regretted everything leading up to that decision that day, and she'll be making up for her guilt with the rest of her miserable life. He was the father figure she'd never had, and she'd betrayed him to a witch, to Delilah of all people, and for what? Even now she didn't know, but this time was different.

This time she didn't hesitate, even as his rat eyes bored down on her and judged. "Look at him, Daud-really look! He didn't ask for this-didn't ask for any of it." There was another way to end all of this. Daud just had to be convinced.

But the old assassin wasn't buying into her cheap card trick. With a disgruntled grunt, Daud twisted his apparition of a body, taking a long, uninterested glance at the Sacrifice, his upper lip turned up in disgust. All he saw was a god of mischief, ripe for the picking. He wanted to see The Outsider's blood stain the stone he was pinned to. It would make for a good end to his malevolent reign.

"Kill him, Billie," he drawled, the heat in his eyes seeping away as slowly as the last minutes of his life. "He doesn't have to beg for death in order for you to give it to him." In almost slow motion, Daud reached for the ancient artifact, his cold fingers pressing softly against the ice of the blade. It hummed at his touch, throbbing in the presence of the Void. This is where it belonged.

Billie didn't move, or even try to. Instead, she watched Daud with frosted eyes, regret bubbling underneath her expression of stone. She couldn't do as he asked. "He's suffering, Daud."

"Aren't we all?" His replies were more lazy, more drawn-out. His resolution was wavering, Billie saw, but it would take a bit more to convince him.

"Perhaps," she replied, softly, her flesh hand rising to his shoulder. To no surprise, it slid through his ghostly form like butter. _He was cold_ , she thought numbly, _much too cold._ His lugubrious expression didn't help much to sooth matters, either.

Daud turned to her, his eyes flashing with an emotion Billie couldn't read, lips pursed. Still, he sat on his rigid island of resolution, unwilling to stand to the task that Billie wished of him. Why wouldn't she do it, if not for him but for the world? The Outsider was a plague to humanity, to the generations to come and to the generations that came before. It's about time that his meddling ended, Daud thought, but doubt had already began to eat away at him. He saw Billie's hand twitch near the ancient blade before willing it away, unable to trust herself to hold such a devastating weapon. He saw this and more, the Void allowing him insight only in that moment.

"You're difficult, Billie, but I guess there's no talking you out of it." When Daud stood, Billie watched the bloodlust swirl away, replaced by silent recognition. It was as if the husk of the bloodfly had peeled off, revealing something much more vulnerable underneath, if she prodded further. Almost immediately, she felt relieved. Why? She wasn't certain. The Outsider had pleaded to her without pleading, begged without begging, and she'd received him. Whether or not he'd tricked her had yet to be seen, but there was no turning back now.

She could feel _his_ painted eyes boring into her back, watching her every move. He was near-nearer than she might have originally thought. The Outsider was always watching… even at his own funeral.

Daud sauntered toward the Sacrifice, his flickering, frosted eyes focused on nothing but the stone man's silent scream. This was the only way Billie would fulfill him, Daud knew. If he didn't do this, then Billie would leave, and The Outsider would be allowed to continue his mischievous reign.

"Ahh, Daud," The Outsider, appearing in a flurry of the Void, murmured in amusement, his head cocked to the side as he caressed his own frozen face, expression as stony as always. "You'll set me free, won't you? You were such an interesting Marked. I watched you murder for coin for decades, and you _enjoyed it._ "

"Have your damned name," Daud growled, form flickering in a cacophony of black and white light, tones flickering and flashing all at once. "Isn't that what you wanted?"

"You hate me," the deity murmured, black eyes sliding over the assassin's face and toward Billie, locking on her expression, watching for cracks in the stone of _her_ face. There were no weaknesses-at least, none that he could exploit.

Daud said nothing, his eyes revealing all.

"Then speak my name, Daud. Whisper it so I may be no more than a man, cursed to walk among the people I've seen only from afar, never allowed to touch." At once, The Outsider was gone, but never _truly_ gone. Billie could still feel the intense burn of the watchful eyes. "Give me peace like Billie shall give you." It was his final request.

Before Daud could change his mind, he leaned forward, lips only inches from the Sacrifice's ear, and spoke the forgotten name.

It was over. Daud straightened and turned toward Billie, eyes stygian yet accepting. His fate was near. "Billie."

"Daud."

And then he was gone in a flash of light, the Sacrifice's stone face flaking to reveal The Outsider's face, boyish in nature, gasping for breath after four-thousand years of nothing but pain and death. Billie caught him in her arms, his legs noodle-like and unable to support his own weight for the moment. She watched in wonder as the black paint in his eyes peeled away, revealing pale green emeralds flicking about in uncertainty.

"I… I can taste blood in my mouth." He paused, inhaling deeply, his lungs still caked in stale air. "These eyes were closed for centuries… and yet I saw everything. I walked through the minds of generations. I've seen it all, and yet… to breathe, to no longer be on the outside looking _in_ , it feels…" He never finished his poem.

Billie helped him back to his feet, almost stumbling herself. "I can take you out of here," she said to him, pressing a hand on his shoulder to keep him steady. "What is… No, what do I call you?" _It must be strange, knowing what you know, seeing with old eyes all the secrets of the world. We've both seen the worst in people's hearts._

 _But in the end, I gave Daud peace, and maybe you can find some peace too._

"My name?" he mumbled, blinking the new eyes that had been gifted to him. They no longer held the universe, the cosmos. They held nothing but his own soul, and that somehow left him feeling much more content than he'd felt for a long time. "My name is Adonis."

The irony made his lips twitch.

* * *

AUTHOR NOTES

Hello! Welcome, welcome all! I'm excited to begin another story, as I was itching to write it. If you're wondering, I chose Adonis from Greek mythology for his 'beauty and desire' and also for the fact that he is categorized as a dying-and-rising god, as he was the mortal lover of Aphrodite before he was gored by an ox. I thought that it suited The Outsider very nicely… Also, as for the inspiration behind the name, I was thinking on the theme of self-reflection, and then I remembered the game mode, Discovery Tour, in Assassin's Creed Origins. It just felt so perfect!


	2. Chapter 2

**Part I: A New Breath of Life**

 **Chapter II**

* * *

"What will we do with a drunken whaler? What will we do with a drunken whaler? What will we do with a drunken whaler early in the mornin'?"

 _Clop. Clop. Clop. Shhhhsht._

"Way-ay up she rises. Way-ay and up she rises. Way-ay up she rises early in the mornin'."

 _Clop. Shhhhhhsht. Clop. Clop. Shhhsht._

"Stuff 'im in a sack and throw 'im over. Stuff 'im in a sack and throw 'im over. Stuff 'im in a sack and throw 'im over…"

 _Clop. Clop. Ker-plunk!_

"...early in the mornin'."

 _Emily Tippit_ , a small smuggler ship coated in an ancient, sopping red dust, groaned ominously as she entered the west side of the port, water lapping at her sides greedily. From her port side, and through the thick grasp of fog, a man with a tall, heavy-set stature dumped a large sack over the railing as she trolled toward the docks. The bay sagged in exhaustion as the burlap sack slowly sank, disappearing from view in a trail of sickening bubbles. A gull screeched overhead.

 _Feed 'im to the hungry rats for dinner. Feed 'im to the hungry rats for dinner. Feed 'im to the hungry rats for dinner early in the mornin'._

Emily

was home. The fog hung in the air as the sun rose (burning at a pace that was no more than lazy). The soft hum of the trolling motor of _Emily Tippit_ reverberated off of the water, cutting out only when she reached the docks.

 _Way-ay and up she rises. Way-ay and up she rises. Way-ay and up she rises early in the mornin'._

Serkonos, The Red Jewel of the South, was waking up, and she was not happy.

* * *

"Alright, we're here. Now get off," Billie grunted, arms crossed.

Adonis ignored her, pale emerald eyes focused on the distant docks of Karnaca. They were bustling now, in the morning, when the whaling crews pulled into port with their fresh catch. He could see the little ants working about the shore, pulling goods on and off of rickety, bloodied ships. "Were we not headed for Dunwall?"

A pause. "I changed my mind."

"You expect me to swim?"

"Take the skiff."

"I won't return it."

"I know."

Shifting his arms, Adonis tugged at the collar around his neck, attempting to shield his sun-shy skin from the stifling ocean air. "You're frightened of me, Billie Lurk." There was no emotion in this conclusion.

Billie turned her head, already heading toward the skiff to rig it up. _Old Daud_ , a tiny cargo vessel, had been stolen from the docks of some poor merchant near the edge of Karnaca, renamed and maintained faithfully by Billie Lurk herself. The plan had been to return to Dunwall-for what reason, she was no longer sure of. Maybe it was to abandon The Outsider on the doorstep of Dunwall Tower, or maybe it was for her own trepidations about what was to come if she were to stay a moment longer in Serkonos. Whatever the case, she soon discovered that _Old Daud_ would never successfully reach Dunwall the way it was. With bloodflies and leaks in the cargo hold, she had plenty of work cut out for her.

If Billie Lurk was going to abandon The Outsider anywhere, she might as well do it here.

"No, you're wrong. I'm not afraid of you-not anymore." _You're powerless now, Outsider. You can't hurt us anymore._

The heavy coat caught against the rusted railing as Adonis turned to watch her, his green eyes focused on her retreating form. "Of course, I walk once more among humanity, blissfully ignorant of what is to come." He paused here, mulling over his next words carefully. "Still, I've watched, from the Void, the lives of generations through painted eyes acting as the cosmos. The mind is its own place, Billie Lurk. In itself it can make a Heaven of Hell and a Hell of Heaven."

Billie didn't respond as she tampered with the restraints for the skiff. The salt-caked mechanics groaned and screeched as they caught, shuddering before they gave way. The skiff crashed halfway into the murky waters below, the nose dipping awkwardly below the surface. She bent over the rails to make sure that it wasn't floating off. "Looks like you'll have to jump down, then. Try not to get strung up by Overseers."

 _Old Daud_ moaned, shifting as Adonis moved to stand beside Billie, one hand on the rusted railing. It was only a couple feet down, but he'd have to be careful. "Then this is goodbye, Lurk."

"Goodbye." _Good riddance._

His heavy coat tore as he leapt down, the skiff screaming and crashing (with its rigging) completely into the murky waters. It tipped and popped, but otherwise stayed afloat.

 _Kuh-kah… kah! Kuhkukkuk! Vrrrr..._

Billie watched the skiff disembark and troll toward the distant docks. Somehow, she knew, they would meet again. The Void had a way of keeping interesting people together.

* * *

Serkonan men grunted as their wet bodies-caked by the ocean and kissed by the sun-bustled to-and-fro, heaving crates and heavy equipment on and off the docks.

"Hope we don't have a small haul again, Cap'n Reive."

"Nothin' to worry 'bout now! She'll catch up soon. She always does."

Chains clanked, metal screeched, and slimy flesh slipped on and off of docks. Karnaca was just as Adonis had remembered it. Not much had changed since Emily Kaldwin had returned to her throne-though Delilah's banners were lowered and Emily's had been raised. Adonis would have liked to see Corvo the Black's rise to power, but he wasn't fortunate enough to see _that_ timeline come to fruition. How interesting it would have been!

 _All hail Emily Kaldwin, the first of her name!_

 _Yes, all hail Empress Emily Kaldwin and her pet dog: Corvo Attano._ Adonis almost laughed.

The skiff coughed and sputtered out along the first dock, brushing up against the decaying wood like a loving child. With a hefty sigh, Adonis pressed the palm of his hand against the edge, hefting himself upon it and lifting his feet up and underneath him. The boots scuffed, propping him up and keeping him steady. For a moment, his eyes wandered about the disused vessel, tearing free only at the low whistle of the nearby whaling crew. They were still rigging up.

" _Attention all Citizens: Curfew has been lifted, but mandatory checkpoints are still in place. Remember, if you have been displaced during the last four months you must submit the correct paperwork by the seventeenth in order to be eligible for compensation."_ The announcement went largely unnoticed, and the hustle and bustle continued unperturbed.

In the distant and long forgotten docks near the east edge of Karnaca Bay sat _Emily Tippit_ , her snout jutting out like the chin of a cranky old witch. Adonis narrowed his eyes, flicking his gaze away and settling on something much more interesting: a bar near the water. He left the skiff behind-It was useless to him anyway.

"Pull up a seat, friend," the bartender grunted. Adonis didn't do as he said, instead leaning against the sun-bleached counter and gazing at a bottle of whiskey. It had been millennia since he'd last tasted the strength of alcohol on his tongue. Glancing at the young man, the bartender went about serving another customer. It was clear Adonis didn't have money. "You know, there's always whalin' crews lookin' for new blood, if you're lookin' for work."

The idea made Adonis ill. "The death-set eyes of beasts peer at me and accuse me of belonging to the race of murderers," he murmured, pale emerald eyes focused on a dumbfounded bartender. "A Tyvian man named Amos said that." With that, he straightened and headed off toward the darkness of the eastern docks. _Emily Tippit_ was a sight too veiled in mystery to forget.

The bright, cheery attitude of the west slowly bled into the dark veil that was the east, the whalers and wandering citizens growing more sparse in number as Adonis delved deeper.

 _Shoot 'im through the heart with a loaded pistol._

The subject of the matter, _Emily Tippit,_ had been abandoned near a burned-out fishery, the bricks still caked in decade-old soot and broken dreams.

 _Shoot 'im through the heart with a loaded pistol._

Of course, there was a reason for Adonis to come here-there were always reasons for what he did, be them understandable or not. He knew what _Emily Tippit_ was-knew who owned it and what they did. As a god, The Outsider would have enjoyed this.

But Adonis wasn't a god-not anymore.

 _Shoot 'im through the heart with a loaded pistol early in the mornin'._

" _Attention all Citizens: Curfew has been lifted, but mandatory checkpoints are still in place."_

The shrine was closer than he thought. His ears strained to catch the faint hum which reminded him of _that place._ It gently pulled at his soul, beckoning him towards the ship. He could hear it. _He could hear it._

" _Remember, if you have been displaced during the last four months you must…"_

It beat like a heart, whispering softly, the Void always near, always _here,_ never _there_ or _where._

" _...submit the correct paperwork by the seventeenth in order to be eligible for compensation."_

A step. Another. Not too far off now.

 _Slice his throat with a rusty cleaver._

He thought he wanted this. He _had_ wanted this, but at what cost? Four thousand years changed a man. Could he still call himself a man? Was he still a human? Adonis felt his heart skip a beat, his boots sliding toward the shrine's call. He could picture the Mark-his name-on the runes in his hands. They hummed softly with the voices of the lost.

 _Slice his throat with a rusty cleaver._

 _Emily Tippit_ flickered out of existence, then back again. He could feel the Void grow closer, clawing at his form and _beckoning him back._

And when he was at the edge and could practically _feel_ the vibrations of The Dead God, the ship was gone. There was nothing at the edge of the docks. Nothing. _Emily_ had not existed.

 _Slice his throat with a rusty cleaver early in the mornin'._

Billie's words from when they'd left the Void rang in his ears. "Not much is certain, but there are some things that I know are true," she had murmured. "The Outsider is no more, and with that the world will change in ways that no one will ever know."

 _The Outsider is no more. The world will change in ways that no one will ever know. The Void. Marked. Lost souls. The Dead God. His name._

"Not a great place to get lost, friend."

All at once, the mortal realm crashed back onto Adonis' shoulders. Taking a step back, he flicked his gaze toward the speaker. There they were: shrouded in the shadows, settled on an abandoned crate, and looking quite pleased with themself. Adonis couldn't tell who they were or what they were doing, but something about their voice… He knew it.

The figure stood, hair dark and eyes peering out from a shadowed face. "The Void calls those who have been touched by it. Have you been Void-touched?"

Adonis could no longer feel the tug. It was nowhere near. "Perhaps… In the past, when life had yet to depart and yet it had been taken."

A grin. "Quite the poetic tongue you have there, Outsider, or… is that you? You seem… weaker now. You came for _Emily?_ She's a jewel, isn't she?" The man wasn't wrong. _Emily_ had called Adonis like a loving mother. It was almost impossible to deny it.

 _The crowd began to move._

 _I joined the procession. One to_

 _the dead One spoke: "How can_

 _we survive You, and why were_

 _we so rash to make You?"_

 _Another recited the calamity:_

" _First, He was like our fathers,_

 _jealous and fearsome._

 _Then we made Him just, a friend_

 _of the cursed, patient and merciful._

"I know you've died, Outsider." A forgotten Marked, bitter in age and angered by deception. "The Mark you bestowed on me all those years ago… It faded, and I knew that you had died. In a way, this gave me joy-a sort of… relief to know that justice had befallen the almighty god of lies." The man stood, brushing off his white-lined garbs. The streaks stood out like a sore thumb, and Adonis found himself wondering how he could have forgotten such a man. Had he become boring? That could be the only reason. "The Void turned to me, touching me with its magic. It wants a new god, Outsider. It _needs_ one. I'm here to fulfill its wishes... and mine.

"And what of you?" he finished, stopping directly in front of Adonis. Something glinted in the Marked's right hand, his left hand settled on Adonis' shoulder. "What will you do?" It was almost an accusation. Adonis only watched, eerily aware. Did Adonis think himself still a god? Was he truly in the present?

"You have much to learn from Delilah's coup," Adonis replied, half in amusement. "What will _you_ do? A forgotten child, forced to rot outside of the only city he knew. His parents outcasts… Does that make you a true Outsider? I wonder."

"I begged for your interest, and you gave it to me, only for you to take it away again. I thought I was special! Is that what you do when people bore you, Outsider?"

"You burned the city with the power I gave you. Your father would be proud."

"Shut up!"

 _This didn't seem right,_

 _but we couldn't let it go._

 _We became apologists, deceived._

 _Our punishment is exile._

 _We are in Babylon_

 _with no Zion to go home to._

Adonis' amusement morphed into something twisted. It was something that he hadn't felt for a long, long time. He'd almost forgotten its touch, its lure.

Pain. A blade scrubbing his insides.

Collapsing into the man, blood bubbled down his mouth, staining the streaks of white in the man's robes. "This won't be the last time we meet, Outsider," the man whispered into his ear, drowning out all other voices of the Void except for his own. "You won't forget my voice, and neither will this Void-forsaken Empire."

 _Way-ay and up she rises. Way-ay and up she rises. Way-ay and up she rises early in the mornin'._

And when Adonis collapsed to the ground, his lungs battered and broken, and his body unable to function as warm stickiness coated his torso and spread about him, he woke up. The eastern docks stood ominously around him and _Emily Tippit_ loomed overhead like a leery witch.

* * *

AUTHOR NOTES

"The mind is its own place and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven." -John Milton

"Cruelty stares at me from the butcher's face. I tread amidst carcasses. I am in the presence of the slain. The death-set eyes of beasts peer at me and accuse me of belonging to the race of murderers." -Amos Bronson Alcott

"The crowd began to move.

I joined the procession. One to

the dead One spoke: "How can

we survive You, and why were

we so rash to make You?"

Another recited the calamity:

"First, He was like our fathers,

jealous and fearsome.

Then we made Him just, a friend

of the cursed, patient and merciful.

This didn't seem right,

but we couldn't let it go.

We became apologists, deceived.

Our punishment is exile.

We are in Babylon

with no Zion to go home to."

\- 2013/09/18/a-poem-on-the-death-of-god/

Thank you for reading! I'd love it if you could drop a review or two! Tell me, what do you think of Adonis? Is Billie right in treating Adonis the way she did? Is 'the man' right in doing what he's doing? What do you think?


	3. Chapter 3

**Part I: A Breath of New Life**

 **Chapter III**

* * *

Adonis gagged, clutching a hand tightly over his chest, the tall collar of his coat fluttering in the budding breeze. There was no blood. _No blood._ He focused his eyes on a disfigured nail in the wooden planks, mind racing and heart thumping like a wild beast. _No blood._ He was alive. At that thought, he barked a laugh, the tone dark and mirthless.

 _Is this what it feels like to taste death for a second time?_

One knee slid underneath him, then the other. Soon, the feet followed, clammy hands grasping at the damp wood for support as he shakily pushed himself to his feet. _Steady, Outsider, steady._

 _Emily Tippit_ was rocking in the shallows, her hull heaving a hefty sigh as Adonis scoured her with his eyes. The shrine within still beat with a warm embrace, but this time he did not feel the call to him as strongly. What did he expect to see had he found it? Perhaps… Perhaps he was hoping for a touch of comfort, but the Void had never offered him its embrace-only a cold nothingness that devoured all. Adonis had been a fool.

He was completely and utterly alone.

He wiped his wet palms, his expression falling to stone once more. So the Marked, Amos Kalin, had discovered The Outsider's dirty little secret. So what? Did the Marked truly expect that the Void would choose him? Adonis had half a mind to expect that he himself was still the Void's favorite, but he was sure that was a lie. By the time Billie had cut the cord, it was over.

"She should have killed me," he murmured. Being alive was much more difficult than he'd remembered. _You're being ridiculous, Outsider. This life is so much better than before._

Adonis' boots scuffed the surface of the eastern docks as he headed up the slab of wood that led to _Emily Tippit_ 's deck. It wobbled under his weight and threatened to snap and crumble into the ocean, but otherwise it held.

 _What are you doing? This is ridiculous! Turn back now._ But Adonis ignored these inner qualms. He had to see for himself.

Glancing about once aboard, Adonis bent over himself and reached for a hatch into the inner belly. It screeched in pain as he opened it and cringed when he dropped it onto the deck with a _thunk!_ With that, he slipped inside.

The walls were veiled by purple and black shadows. Somewhere, the shrine beat with the warmth of a heart, not quite beckoning him and yet also whispering that _it was here._

The inside of the cargo hold left Adonis with a shiver up his spine, and the faint hum of bloodflies resonated in his ears as he drew nearer to a shrine he knew wasn't his. Where is it? _Where is it? The whispers are growing stronger._ Softly, his foot pressed against the stomach of a man, his face horribly disfigured by a nest of writhing maggots. Taking a step back, Adonis stepped on another, and then another. The buzz resonated in his ears, the sour odor of rotting flesh nauseating him.

There it was.

The rough-hew shrine was stacked on top of a cargo crate and tucked into the tightest corner of the hold. It's soft light lit up the faces of the deceased, the wings of bloodflies interrupting the glow with their hummingbird-like beat. Adonis didn't step a foot closer. Instead, he allowed the bloodflies to swirl around him. They kept their distance, the hum a hypnotic melody.

The spell didn't last long. Adonis had seen what he'd wanted to see.

Leaving _Emily Tippit,_ Adonis mulled over the recent happenings. He'd made a mistake in ignoring Amos Kalin-so what? What bothered him the most wasn't Kalin, in fact, it was the Void's intentions. _It wishes to devour all the lights in the sky-all that has been and all that could be._

As Adonis made his way back toward the more lively western docks, his eyes began to notice the mist-like fissures that he'd passed on his way here. Posters of Billie Lurk and some gang leader flickered in and out, replacing the other and then back again. _The Void is here, there, everywhere._ At every street corner _something_ was out of place, flickering just under the normal gaze, but always _there._

It unnerved him, to say the least. The Void appeared to be gushing through every crack and seam at his absence, cackling at the loss of its oppressive representative and touching the hearts of the weary and unaware with its heretical black magic.

Feet echoed off of street corners, stampeding in another time and yet quiet in this one. As Adonis approached one of the anomalies, he witnessed screams that did not belong, laughing that put any steeled heart on-edge, and cries that could shatter glass. His hand slowly rose to touch it.

An explosion of _black, black, black._ Screams. Hunger. Hunger. _Hunger. Hunger. Hunger. It hungered._

Adonis ran. Even when his new lungs screamed in pain and his sides burned like they'd been torched, he ran. For thousands of years he'd never felt such _fear,_ such absence of life, such bloodlust from that endless vacuum of suffocation and hunger and emptiness. His ripped coat fluttered behind him as he booked it back towards the skiff. _Old Daud_ still mulled about just off the coast, no doubt preparing for a journey to _somewhere. The Void nipped at his heels and trickled through his bloodstream, offering its unwelcome amusement._

 _Once you've been touched by the Void, it never truly goes away. It's always there-inside us… and waiting with watchful eyes._

The skiff was absent from where he'd left it, the empty waters filling him with irritation and dread. The Void festered inside his gut, prodding at his organs and biting at his intestines-It was not a lovely feeling. Jerking his attention, he attempted to search for the abandoned vessel. Karnaca suddenly felt stifling, like it was a cage and he was the animal.

The skiff. Right.

But it was still nowhere to be found, and as his heartbeat began to hiccup and slow, the teasing prods and whispers of the Void slowed with it, eventually leaving Adonis to wonder if he'd seen or heard anything at all.

* * *

 _The soft kisses of the sea breeze was enough to send a chill down his spine._

 _Here he was, on the cusp of humanity with eyes as green as peridots. He was here. He was now. He was_

 _alive. In the past, he would have believed such a feat to be folly-a foolish dream of a boy, helpless at his own funeral._

 _But here he was, the assassin Billie Lurk at his side, one foot on the mountain of life and one lingering in the valley of death. He was The Outsider: a vestige of a boy, his name long forgotten, his past scarcely remembered. Of those he'd spoken to, only Vera Morey-better known as the witch Granny Rags in her last days of The Rat Plague, a shadow which still haunts Dunwall to this day-had listened, her deaf ears perked and her blind eyes seeing. She'd been a strange curiosity, and yet she died the death of a rotten-hearted murderer, the blood of the leader of the Bottle Street Gang, Slackjaw, forever staining her lips._

 _To a being of over four-thousand years, life was a strange concept, and yet it felt so_

 _right._

 _"How does it feel?" Billie Lurk murmured, tilting her head and eyeing him from her peripherals, lids narrowed lazily and watching-always watching. He was the god of mischief, after all. "To live again."_

 _The black-haired boy, now a man, ran a hand through the locks which now swayed in the salted breeze. How long had he awaited this moment? How long had he yearned to feel connected once again to this plane of existence? Too long-much too long. The hair was dry and crunchy-a testament to his days spent as a beggar on the streets of a Pandyssian city, its name wiped from any and all history books. If one were to visit it now, all they'd be met with was a crumbling ruin left to rot by a fleeing people. Civilization always ended the same. It was humanity's doom._

 _For a long moment, the former Outsider drew in a breath, the chilled air stinging his lungs and instilling in him further resolve. To yearn was one thing, but to feel was another. He'd forgotten what ocean air tasted like. "It is not as I remembered it," he admitted, turning away from the cliffside to face her, his face cast in shadow by the rising sun. "I died a boy, but today I live as a man." He paused here, considering his next words with care. "Tell me, Billie Lurk, what was it you sought when you came for me? What were your intentions behind your actions?"_

 _For a moment, the assassin appeared taken aback, her mild confusion poorly concealed on her dark features. "Didn't you-"_

 _"I was not all-knowing, Billie Lurk. I was no god, as so many revere me as. I was but an entity-a play-thing of the Void that I was contained in." Again he paused, turning back to face the ocean. He noticed as the waves crashed against the rocks far below, the turbulent mist spraying up in a whirlwind of fury. The ocean was angry, as it should be. For a moment, he almost believed that he'd witnessed the breeching spout of a great leviathan. "Why did you allow me life?"_

 _Billie shuffled in her spot, watching the tall collar of his jacket whip and flare in the nipping breeze. "No one deserves what was done to you all those years ago." Her reply was ernest, the truth bare for all to see. "I only did what was right."_

 _Amusement leaked into his words. "Ironic, for an assassin."_

 _"Those days are behind me, Outsider. You know that as much as anyone."_

 _"I do."_

 _The silence that plagued them both was eternal, each moment pulled and twisted until it snapped, leading way for the next. Finally, the black-haired man turned back toward her, his intentions unclear. His footsteps halted inches away from her form, his face a mask of indifference just as it had always been-except for one thing: a twinkle in his eye. Had that been there before? "I believe you require a boat, captain."_

* * *

The skiff was there, bobbing slowly against the docks, hidden from sight just moments before. Where had it been, he wondered, when the Void teased and treated him so? But it was there, he knew, and had always been there. The Void was a tricky thing-a mischievous illusion to deceive even the best. If one weren't careful, they'd believe it to be harmless.

But the Void was nothing but harmless; It would devour the world until there were no lights in the sky.

Almost in a hurry, Adonis stumbled over the docks and into the skiff, immediately starting it up and trolling off toward _Old Daud._ Serkonos was a pleasant Isle for the wicked to dwell, but the former Outsider was not yet ready to lay to rest old ties. The Void had other plans.


End file.
